Stolen Innocence
by loveintheimpala
Summary: Dean runs into the little sister he hasn't seen in four years on a hunt, and he wants to find out what dark secrets pushed her ditch their family years earlier.
1. Chapter 1

_The idea for this was given to me by a friend of mine, it's set while Sam is away at college. It's going to be maybe about three or four chapters I think, not long.  
In this Dean is 24, and Jamie is 20._

* * *

**_Lyman, Nebraska. 11:46pm._**

Dean headed into the small, darkened bar, the only one that he had found in the small town so far. It was almost midnight, the long drive there had left him needing a beer before he went and found himself a motel to stay in. He glanced around the room slowly, it was quiet with only a few other people scattered around, most of them either in couples or keeping to themselves. He came to a stop at the bar and nodded over to the guy standing behind it, ordering himself a beer. His green eyes travelled between the different people there as he waited, completely stopping when they fell to the girl sitting at the other side of the bar. His breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide and unblinking at the completely startling sight.

"I don't believe it." he whispered to himself, refusing to blink as though he thought that she might vanish into thin air if he did.

He stared straight at her, narrowing his eyes a little and leaning forwards to get a better look. For a second he thought that he had to be hallucinating, that it was a mistake or just a very strange coincidence, that there was no way that it could be happening. But there she was, sitting and looking down at the beer in her hands, completely oblivious to the hunter that couldn't tear his eyes away from her. The girl who had walked out on them, on him. The girl who had never bothered to call and let them know that she was alive, the girl who had turned her back on her own family at the age of sixteen. His own little sister.

It was Jamie.

He almost hadn't recognised her. What had been pale skin was now tanned. Her once light blonde hair now reached halfway down her back and was dyed jet black. The bangs that she had once graced over her forehead were moved to the side, the waves completely straightened. She looked entirely different. More than that, she looked lost. Dean couldn't help the concern at the thought, he wanted, _needed_, to know where she had been all that time. It had been four years since she had walked out on them and he wanted to know what she had been doing. He wanted to know that she was okay. He grabbed his beer and headed around to the other side of the bar, sliding onto the bar stool beside hers.

"Hey, stranger." he greeted simply, the first words he had said to her in four years.

Even looking at her from the side he noticed that her eyes were still the same bright green colour that they had been when she had been a child. But something else jumped out at him, they looked a little bloodshot, like she hadn't slept in about a month. There were dark circles beneath them, she looked exhausted.

Jamie visibly tensed. She wasn't quite sure how many beats her heart skipped at the sound of the familiar voice, she was certain that it had stopped for a moment, something dropped in her stomach. She didn't dare to look up to who she knew was now sitting beside her, she couldn't.

The colour had completely drained from her face and left her a pasty white colour. "Dean." she said flatly, never once looking away from the beer in her hands as she spoke.

Dean smiled a little, taking a drink of his own beer. He couldn't comprehend it, she was alive. All the years that he had spent asking himself that same question and there she was, she was okay. She was alive and breathing and she was just fine. At least, she looked it.

"Long time, no see." he commented lucidly.

She gave a small nod, almost unnoticeable. "Are they here?"

There was no emotion at all in her voice, she appeared completely blank. He could've sworn that she had asked it in a way that made him think she wanted him to say no, that she was going to be relieved when he told her no. He didn't understand that. He didn't get why she seemed to want to distance herself from her family.

"No," He frowned a little at the question but he didn't press it. "I'm on my own."

Jamie looked down. "Where's Sam?" she asked. There was something like a mixture of curiosity and dread in her question, but she covered it well enough that no one else would have picked it up. He could tell that she was still concerned about him.

"He's at Stanford," Dean answered. "Got a full ride, he's gonna be a lawyer apparently." He shrugged and took another drink.

Jamie nodded again. "Good for him." she muttered.

There was no pride in her voice, no happiness, still no sign of emotion at all. There had barely been any since he had sat down, and that was starting to disturb him a little. It was like he was sitting with a zombie. He hadn't seen her in four years yet she seemed even more shattered than ever. He had known that she had been a little down in the weeks before she had left, she had kept herself to herself, she'd been quiet and reclusive, but he had put that down to being a teenage hormone thing, she had been a sixteen year old girl, it happened. But then she had walked out and he had thought maybe it had been something more. There hadn't been a warning, no sign or heads up, she had packed a bag one day and walked out on them, no explanation. Now, she appeared completely void of feelings, or at least the good ones.

"Yeah," Dean said, a little unsure of what to say to her. She didn't seem willing to speak to him, like she was forcing out her answers just for the sake of it and they were taking up all of her energy. "So Dad went off on a hunt a few days ago and he told me to find myself a case."

Jamie huffed. "And you ended up on this one," she mumbled into her beer. "Just my luck."

Dean ignored the sarcasm. "I know," he said, matching her tone, a level of annoyance playing on his reply. "Must be your lucky night, right?"

She scoffed. "Yeah, well I've got this, so you can go."

"Oh no, sweetheart," Dean countered. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Fine." She placed the beer down on the bar and turned on the stool. "Then I'll go."

"Really?" Dean turned and raised his eyebrows at her. "You're gonna walk out on a case? That's professional."

Jamie sighed, clearly defeated, and turned back to the bar. "It's just business." she said, her tone hard.

Dean shrugged. "Fine."

"And when it's done, _we_ are done." she said with a little more force, like she wanted to make sure he got the message.

He regarded her for a moment and sighed. "Fine." he said again.

Jamie released a deep breath and pulled a hand down her face. "Alright, the hunt, it's a spirit. I already know who it is, I just need to find out where the body's buried and burn it. It's simple." she informed him. "Still no need for two of us." she added, like she was in the hope that she could get him to change his mind.

Dean ignored her. "Have you talked to the family?" he pressed. "The cops? Checked the local records?"

She glared at him. "I'm not an idiot, Dean. Believe it or not, I know how to hunt." she retorted. "The sheriff's gonna find out and call me tomorrow."

He noticed that she had barely looked at him since he had sat down. She hadn't once managed to look him in the eyes. She had kept her focus solely on the bar in front of her, her attention fixated on the beer bottle in her hands as though it was the most interesting thing in the world to her.

Dean nodded slowly. "Great, we got a whole night to catch up then, haven't we? You first." he said sarcastically, not even expecting an answer.

"You know, as tempting as that sounds, I was on my way out when you walked in, so," She shrugged. "Bye, Dean." With that she drank the last of her beer and hopped off the bar stool, turning towards the door and crossing the bar towards it without looking back.

Dean shook his head to himself and followed her. He couldn't understand it, he didn't understand why she seemed to hate him so much. One minute they had been fine, they had been like the best of friends, and the next she had packed up a bag and she was leaving them behind, no explanation or warning. She hadn't called, she hadn't gotten in touch, she had never found them again, honestly a part of him thought that she had gotten herself killed, that had been the only logical reason he could think to explain why she had completely cut them from her life.

"Where are we going?" he called after her as he followed her out onto the dark parking lot.

"I don't know where you're going," she said over her shoulder. "I'm going back to the motel."

"Great, I'll drive." Dean suggested brightly, hoping to lighten her mood.

He watched as her eyes fell to the Impala, lingering there for a moment before she shook her head. There was a look on her face, something like fear, before she composed herself and took a step back. "No, I'll drive."

"Jamie -" Dean went to argue but she got there first.

"Listen, either I'm driving or you're following." she snapped before he had a chance to say more than her name. "I am not getting in that car."

Dean shook his head at her. "The hell happened to you?" he muttered, looking over her slowly. Jamie sighed, like he was doing nothing more than wasting her time. "When did you become such a bitch?"

Jamie scoffed, her patience was now clearly gone. "Goodbye, Dean." she mumbled, turning on her heel and walking off towards her car without a second thought.

Dean blinked, he was nothing but lost. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait up." He jogged after her when she didn't stop. "If it's that damn important you can drive." he said, slowing down to walk beside her.

"Great," she replied simply. "Was that really so hard?"

The drive back was tense, the only sound that filled the car was the low talking of the people on the radio. Dean wasn't sure what to say, he was pretty sure that any attempt at small talk would just be ignored and there was sure as hell no point in trying to get her to talk about anything else. It was as though he was sitting with a stranger. She was nothing like he remembered, she seemed cold and blank, like she couldn't care about anything, or maybe that was it, maybe she just didn't care about anything. He was starting to think that something must have happened to her in the time that she had been gone, something that had turned her into the girl who sat beside him. She was like a shadow of who she had once been. And it was starting to make him uneasy.

A part of him was thankful when she made the turn into the parking lot of a motel. The awkward and tense car ride had gone on for ten minutes too long for his liking. Jamie said nothing to him as she pulled her keys out of the ignition and climbed out of the car. He followed her across the parking lot to one of the rooms and stepped inside after her, closing the door behind himself quietly.

"You gonna be like this all night?" he asked her bluntly, raising his eyebrows.

She pulled off her jacket and tossed it onto one of the beds before she turned to lean against the edge of the table, facing him. "Be like what?" she questioned, acting as though she hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about.

"This; not talking, acting like a bitch." he snapped. "There's no need for it, Jamie. You're the one who walked out, not me."

Jamie shook her head and reached behind her for an unopened bottle of whiskey, taking a long drink from it. Behind her there were a couple of already empty whiskey bottles. He noticed on the nightstand there was a half empty bottle of vodka. "Jamie," he glanced between them and frowned a little, concerned. "How much do you drink?"

She shrugged, nonchalantly. "Enough to get me through the day." she replied bluntly. She didn't seem to care.

Dean narrowed his eyes, shaking his head in disapproval. He got the feeling that there was something behind that comment, something that confirmed his thoughts that maybe something bad had happened to her to leave her the way she was. And he wanted to know what that thing was.

He went to answer but stopped as his phone rang from his jacket pocket. He sighed and pulled it out, frowning. "It's Dad," he muttered. "Hold on."

"Don't answer it." Jamie suddenly said, there was something in her voice that sounded like desperation, and he didn't understand where it was coming from. She looked scared.

"I have to answer it, Jamie." he countered.

"Just, don't tell him that you're with me." she pushed.

"What?" Dean flipped the phone open and frowned, holding it to his ear before she could answer.

"Dean please, please," she practically begged him, her voice hushed enough that it couldn't be heard down the phone. "Don't tell him."

"Yeah, Dad?" Dean answered down the phone, watching her curiously as he spoke. "Yeah, I'm great, I took a hunt." Jamie turned away from him, a hand wrapped in her hair, he could tell, she wasn't sure whether or not Dean would tell him. "Yeah, uh, listen, I'm right in the middle of searching for this thing, I'll call you back." Dean flipped the phone closed and sighed. "Alright, what the hell was that about?" he asked her.

Jamie shook her head. "Nothing," she answered. "I just don't want him to know where I am, that's all."

She was lying, he could see it. Either that or there was something else behind the fact she didn't want him to know where she was, because he knew that their Dad would be straight there to find her, god knows he had spent enough time searching for her in the weeks after she had bailed on them.

"Why do you insist on being alone, Jamie?" Dean finally asked, watching her face curiously for any indication of an answer that he knew wouldn't come from her mouth. Even when they had been younger he remembered how much time she had wanted to spend alone in her room, how she had avoided spending any more time than necessary with other people. She always seemed to want to be by herself, and he hadn't understood it.

She shrugged. "Because," she paused and took another drink while she thought about it. "That's the way I like it."

Dean shook his head, he was getting annoyed and they both knew it. "You disappear for years, you don't call, you refuse to speak to Dad, hell you've barely spoken to me -"

"I thought we were keeping this business?" she spoke over him, raising an eyebrow.

"See what I mean?" He held out his hands and sighed. "What exactly did we do to make you hate us so much, huh?" he asked, his tone harsh. "What did I do to you that was so awful you never wanted to see me again? That meant it was better I thought you to be dead?"

That statement seemed to hit her, she looked down to the floor, unable to face him, and shook her head. "Don't be stupid, Dean." she muttered.

"No, I'm being serious." he retorted. "Why did you leave, Jamie? Tell me."

Jamie sighed, she didn't reply, didn't make an attempt to response in any way. Dean just rolled his eyes, he knew there was no getting an answer from her.

"Are you getting a room, or what?" she asked bluntly.

Dean scoffed. "What are you talking about, there's two beds."

Jamie regarded him for a moment, sure that he was now intentionally trying to rile her up. "I don't like sharing a room with people." she countered simply.

"That's crazy, all we did was share rooms when we were kids." argued Dean, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over the back of a chair, turning back to her with a smile, knowing he had her beat.

She stood with her hands on her hips, watching him closely. "You know what, fine." She dropped down onto the edge of her bed and began unlacing her boots before she kicked them off. "I can't be bothered to argue with you anymore."

Dean sighed as he watched her turn off the light, leaving the room only in a dim brightness from the lamp in the corner of the room. She climbed into bed and turned her back to him, he was pretty sure that she could no longer face him, and he didn't know why. He kicked off his own boots and dropped down into the other bed, letting out a deep sigh. He ran a hand down his face as he tried to get his thoughts together. He had thought that she was dead, and now she was back and the thing that struck him was that she seemed to actually be dead. There was no life in her, she was just there. Her eyes were dull, she was emotionless and it scared him. Something awful had happened to her, and he knew she wouldnt' tell him what that was.

He lay there for a what felt like hours until he finally heard her breathing even out, until he was sure that she was finally sleeping. He watched her, like he wanted to make sure that she was safe, but more than that, he wanted her to really be safe. He didn't want her off on her own again, but there was a clear hesitance towards working with him, there wasn't a chance that she was going back to Dad with him. He had a good idea that the second the hunt was over she was going to turn her back on him and bail again. He didn't want another four years between them, hoping that one day he'd just accidentally stumble into her again.

He couldn't let that happen. Not again.

* * *

_The Next Morning, 7:23am. _

Dean woke early the next morning. He blinked open his eyes through the bright sunlight shining through the gap in the shades. He looked to the other bed on his left to see Jamie still sleeping, her face buried in the pillow and her forehead creased as though she was dreaming hard about something. He silently climbed out of bed and dragged his feet across the room to the table where he dropped down into one of the chairs and rested his forehead against his hands. The conversations with her from the previous night were still swimming around in his mind, he couldn't work out what it was that was wrong with her. He didn't understand why she was the way she was. And the longer that he went on not knowing, the worse it was getting.

Before he could get out another thought, a sharp gasp from the other side of the room made him jump.

Jamie woke with a start, sitting up in bed and wiping her face with her hands. There was no relief and no escape in the darkness of the countless motel rooms, all they brought was bad memories, and because there, everything was real. Everything that haunted her through the night was real. She came crashing straight out of one hell and she woke up into another. And the pain was all too immense to bear sometimes. Every time she had one of those nightmares she wished that she could just fall back into a deep, dreamless sleep, one without the nightmares. But she couldn't, she never did. And sometimes, when they were really bad, she wished that it would be the last time that she woke up. There was no hope left in her, there was no hope of it getting better or going away, she was going to have to live with it and she knew that.

She finally brought her face away from her hands and released a deep breath, sitting up a little straighter.

"That happen a lot?" A voice came from the other side of the room. She looked up to see Dean sitting at the table, watching her curiously, eyebrows raised.

Jamie had almost forgotten that he was there. She ignored his question and grabbed the bottle of vodka from the table beside her, taking a long drink. "Why are you awake?" she asked, he guessed to change the subject.

Dean stood from the chair and crossed the room, sitting down on the edge of her bed. She backed away a little, watching him with uncertainty. "What's going on with you, Jamie?" he asked seriously, all aspects of joking and casualness gone.

"I don't know what you're talking about." she muttered, looking down at the bottle in her hand.

"Jamie," Dean shook his head. "Stop lying to me. Something's happened to you, and I wanna know what. I wanna know why you left, I wanna know how you've ended up like this. I mean, I thought you were dead." She still said nothing. "Jamie, talk to me. Please."

She cleared her throat, looking in deep thought, and picked at the label on the bottle. The sound of her phone ringing made her jump. Dean sighed, for a second he thought she was going to talk to him, but she climbed out of bed and placed the bottle down on the table as she passed to answer it.

Dean watched her. There wasn't an ounce of doubt in his mind, she had just given away that something terrible had happened to leave her like that. The drinking and the nightmares, the way she acted around him and the way that she refused to look him in the face, ever, it had to be something bad. He wanted to help her, he really did, but she didn't seem willing to tell him what it was that had happened, and that only freaked him out more. There had been a time that he was pretty sure she'd have told him anything, and now, she was a different person, she had changed so much over the past four years it scared him.

He glanced up at her as she placed the phone down on the table again. "That was the sheriff, found the gravesite." she muttered. Dean just nodded, unable to think of words. "I'm gonna have a shower, why don't you go get your stuff and we'll go get breakfast or something?"

She didn't look at him as she spoke, and a part of him knew that she was only saying it because she felt bad about how she had acted with him the previous night, but he nodded anyway. "Sure." He offered up a weak smile and sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. He grabbed his blue jacket and turned to the door, leaving the room.

Something was wrong, and he was going to find out what. If it was the last thing he did he was going to get her to talk to him.

* * *

_Okay, hope you liked it, thank you for reading! The next chapter should be up in like two or three days, I'm almost finished with it and you'll get to find out what happened to her.  
I should give a warning, without giving too much away, that some of the things they'll talk about will get quite dark (I'll put a warning at the top of the next chapter), so be warned.  
Thank you again for reading, guys! :-)) _


	2. Chapter 2

_Just a warning, this chapter will talk about things that could be upsetting to some. It goes right from where the last chapter finished._

* * *

Jamie sipped at her coffee, releasing a long breath as she tried to summon the strength in herself to keep her eyes open. She knew that it was only going to be a matter of minutes before Dean arrived back at the motel to find her note telling him to meet her in the diner, she just couldn't stand staring at the walls of that motel room any longer. She tried to spent the least amount of time in them that was possible. She couldn't take another talk with Dean like the one they'd had earlier that morning, for a moment she had thought she was going to crack, that she was going to spill her dark secrets to him.

_You know what happens if you talk, Jamie, and I don't want to do that. So it stays between us, alright. Always. _

The blood chilling voice still swam around her mind in relentless circles, never-resting. She heard it every single time someone asked her one of those monotonous, repetitive questions; why do you drink so much? What happened to you? Why are you like this? And she had never, ever broken. Not yet. But Dean made it hard to keep everything bottled up inside, he had a way of getting things out of people. He pushed and pushed until he got his answer, and a part of her had wanted him to know, just so he would stop thinking that everything had been his fault. She wanted to make him understand why she had left, but she knew that she couldn't. Honestly, she was still scared.

She inadvertently jumped as Dean dropped down opposite her in the booth and gave a small smile, a smile which quickly turned to a frown at the look on her face. She was drained completely white of colour, looking as though she had just seen a ghost. Her eyes were wide and staring straight ahead, unseeingly. For a moment he was certain she was going to throw up.

"What is it?" he asked, concerned. He glanced back over his shoulder to try and work out what she was staring at, but there was nothing there, nothing that stood out to him anyway. He turned back to her and raised his eyebrows. "Jamie?" he pressed, seeming to break through her thoughts. "You alright?"

"That jacket." she whispered, more to herself than to him. "

Dean looked down at his leather jacket, the one that had once belonged to their Dad, and frowned. He was now utterly lost. "What about it?"

Jamie opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, then looked down and shook her head. "Nothing," she mumbled, her eyes fixed on the coffee cup in her hands. "It's nothing, forget it."

Dean raised his eyebrows, clearly unconvinced. "You sure?" He didn't understand why she didn't feel she could talk to him.

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, just," she paused for a moment. "It doesn't matter."

"Hm," The frown held on his face but Dean brushed it off, deciding it better not to start another argument with her. "So," he began brightly, obviously intending to change the subject. "Where've you been all this time?"

Jamie shrugged. "Hunting." she replied simply, saying it as though it wasn't really a big deal to her.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Since you were sixteen?" he pressed, clearly anything but happy about it. "How the hell does that work? You can't hunt, on your own, at sixteen, Jamie."

"Sure you can." she countered. "You get a fake ID that says you're twenty-one, hustle enough pool that you can bribe your way out of any problems, and you're fine."

Dean stared at her, mouth agape, it all sounded so simple coming from her, he couldn't believe it. He didn't _want_ to believe that hunting on her own at that age, having to take care of herself like that with no one to watch her back, with no one to rely on, had been better than being with him and Sam.

"Wow," he commented, the only thought he could seem to word. "That's.. That's.. Just, wow." He shook his head at her. "So you think that you were better off lying and breaking the law on your own than what you were with your family? That's nice, Jamie. Thanks."

"Hey," She shrugged. "You asked."

Dean sighed. "So, what? You've been on your own all this time? I mean, did you meet someone?"

A part of him wanted her to say yes, maybe in the hope that she'd had someone watching her back, someone to stop her doing anything stupid or getting herself killed. But a part of him wanted her to say no, because he didn't trust other people where his family were concerned, whoever they were.

Jamie scoffed, shaking her head. "Like who? I stay the hell away from other hunters, Dean." she replied bluntly. "I mean, for a start, I don't know how many of them Dad put an APB out on me to, and second, I don't trust them. I don't trust anyone."

Dean gave a nod, at least he knew that she wasn't stupid. "Smart move." he commented.

He could take some reassurance in the fact that he knew, even if he hated the idea of her hunting alone at such a young age, that she had been doing it with the right frame of mind. She was cautious, and he could even say that she was responsible. But he also knew that she was right, there were a number of hunters out there he knew for a fact would call their Dad and tell him where she was if they were to run into her. But he still didn't understand why she had such a fear of her own family finding her again, that still remained a mystery to him.

"So, what's the plan then?" he asked her, nodding over at one of the waitresses for a coffee as she passed.

Jamie rolled her eyes at the flirtatious smirk on his face as he looked the woman up and down, he clearly hadn't changed. As much as she didn't want to let herself admit it, she mad missed him since she had left. She had missed the way that he had been able to make her smile, even if it was only a moment, when smiling seemed so far out of reach. She missed how he had sometimes been able to make her forget her own dark thoughts. Now and again, even without realising he was doing it, he had reminded her not to give up, that it wasn't worth it.

"I dunno," she muttered as the woman walked away. Dean finally tore his eyes away from her and turned his attention back to Jamie. "Suppose we'll have to kill some time, can't really do anything until tonight, unless you wanna burn up a body in broad daylight."

Dean nodded in agreement. "Alright, what d'ya wanna do?" he asked, taking a drink of his coffee.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, I've got some stuff I need to do, so -"

"What stuff?" Dean cut her off suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Just stuff," she said defensively. "It's not important. I'll, uh, I'll meet you tonight, okay?"

Dean opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but before he could even think up an argument she had already crossed the diner and left through the doors. He shook his head to himself slowly, something was up with her. He couldn't work out whether she really did have something to do or whether she just didn't want to talk to him all day, but he could take a pretty good guess. She was so closed up around him, more than he had ever remembered, she made it look like an effort just being around him. He missed his sister, the one that he had grown up with, before she had become the way she was now.

* * *

_That night, 11:32pm._

Dean walked through the dark graveyard, shining his torch around slowly as he looked between the different names on the rows of graves around him. Jamie hadn't shown up again, he was starting to think that she had skipped town and bailed on him, which wouldn't be a big shocker to him if it was the truth. But if that was the case, the first thing he intended to do once he was done with the hunt was find her and get some straight answers. He didn't understand her, at all.

He walked further into the graveyard and stopped at a sound behind him. It sounded like a faint scraping somewhere in the distance, but he couldn't quite work out where. He frowned and turned in the direction of it, following the sound that only became louder the closer he got to whatever it was. The sound became clearer the further he walked, until the point that he was completely aware of what it was. He came to a stop at the edge of one of the graves, peering down and raising his eyebrows.

"You took your time." Jamie muttered, not even bothering to look up and make sure that it was him.

Dean dropped his duffel bag and scoffed, jumping down into the half dug grave so that they were standing face to face. "Well, I would've gotten here earlier if someone wouldn't have ditched my ass this morning, again." Jamie rolled her eyes and went back to shoveling dirt out of the grave. Dean grabbed a shovel of his own and began doing the same. "I'm guessing you're not willing to disclose where you've been all day?" he pressed sarcastically, already knowing what her answer would be.

Jamie scoffed. "You'd be guessing right." she quipped.

Dean shook his head. "You know you're not gonna be able to keep up this lying forever, Jamie." he told her simply. "Sooner or later, you're gonna have to tell me what's going on with you."

She huffed a laugh. "Well, I choose later." she retorted.

"Of course you do." Dean muttered, not at all surprised with her answer.

It didn't take long to hit the coffin. Jamie pushed herself up out of the grave and grabbed a shotgun as Dean smashed open the wood with the back of his shovel. He cleared his throat at the quickly becoming familiar sight of a skeleton and also pushed himself up out of the grave. He grabbed the salt from the ground and began to pour it over the bones. He looked over his shoulder at the sound of a gunshot, seeing Jamie shoot the pale, transparent form of the ghost, before he turned his attention back to the grave.

Once he was done, he tossed the empty salt container to the ground and turned just in time to see the ghost appear and throw Jamie off somewhere in the darkness. His eyes frantically scanned between the graves for her. "Jamie?!" he yelled. "Are you alright?!"

Before he could wait for an answer, Dean seemed to feel the presence of someone standing behind him and turned around, coming face to face with the ghost. There was a murderous look in the cold, dead eyes that stared back at him. Before he even had a chance to register the fact, not even a second after he had turned around, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the night air and the ghost dissipated in front of him. He turned to Jamie and gave a small nod. "Thanks for that." he muttered.

Jamie didn't respond, just threw him the bottle of lighter fluid which he then poured over the bones. He tossed down the matches and watched as the fire broke out through the coffin, engulfing the body in flames.

It seemed surreal to him, the two of them had never taken a hunt alone before, never with just the two of them there, yet it felt like the most familiar thing to be doing. Without words, they seemed to fall into such an easy pattern, it was like it was all routine to them already.

Jamie dropped the shotgun down to the ground and sat down at the edge of the grave with a heavy groan. The pain was clear on her face, she didn't even bother to hide it. "You alright?" Dean asked, concerned.

She nodded slowly. "I'm great, just gimme a minute."

Dean looked skeptical. He moved to sit down beside her on the ground and sighed. "Hey, you went with quite a bang there, your ribs might be cracked." he pressed. "Let me take a look."

"Dean," she protested. "My ribs are fine."

"Just show me, we'll make sure." Dean tried again.

"Dean -" she went to argue but Dean wasn't having it.

"Show me, Jamie." he said a little more forcefully.

She sighed, defeated, and pulled up her t-shirt. Through the darkness, even with the only light coming from the fire burning beside them, he could clearly see the amount of scars on her stomach. If he hadn't known better he'd have said that they had come from knives. They looked years old, yet he never remembered anything happening to her when she had been with them, he would have noticed. He was sure he would have noticed someone plunging a knife into his kid sister's stomach.

"What the hell happened there?" Jamie didn't answer, shaking her head and refusing to look at him. Dean sighed and tentatively reached out to feel her ribs, satisfied that they weren't damaged. "You were lucky," he commented. "I think you're just bruised."

"Yeah, that's me, lucky." she muttered.

Dean frowned, brushing off the comment and putting it down to the pain. "So, where were you all day?"

For a second she looked grateful that he had changed the subject, but a part of him knew she still wouldn't say so. "Why does it matter where I was?" she asked defensively.

"You been out drinking?" Dean took a guess, at the same time he quirked an eyebrow at her. "Or worse?" he pressed. "Are you on drugs?"

Jamie scoffed. "No, Dean," she said, exasperated. "I wasn't drinking and I am not on drugs."

"Alright then, so what? Getting laid?" he nudged her arm with his elbow, throwing her a smirk. "Got a boyfriend that I don't know about?" Jamie just scoffed. "Okay, so then maybe that's the problem? No boyfriend. You need to get laid, it's probably why you're so cranky."

Jamie turned to him in disbelief. "Okay, you did not just say that to me."

"Hey, come on," Dean persisted. "I won't tell anyone. When was the last time you got laid, Jamie?"

She could feel the blush creeping into her cheeks, looking down awkwardly. "Dean -" she shook her head, staring at her lap.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Wait, never?" she looked up at him and said nothing. "Not even once? You - wow. No, that's, uh, good." he nodded. "Good for you."

"Dean, I'm only twenty, what is the big deal? Huh? I mean, so what if I haven't." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "You know, if I remember right, you used to beat up people just for looking in my direction, are you surprised I'm psychologically scarred?"

Dean chuckled. "Yeah," he smirked. "Good times."

Jamie gave a short nod, saying nothing. Her eyes burned as she stared into the fire, pushing back the memories that had crept up through their conversation and burying them somewhere in the back of her mind, trying not to think about them. Neither of them spoke, just sat there for a while and never uttered a word to the other. Dean gave the occasional glance at her out of the corner of his eye, like he was subconsciously making sure that she was okay, something he highly doubted.

* * *

The drive back to the motel was silent, almost tense. Neither of them wanted to speak, as if they already knew what was going to happen when they got back there. Jamie couldn't stay with him, she knew that. She couldn't live out that life with him, she couldn't hunt with him, and he couldn't know why. She couldn't tell him, there was no way. The best thing she could think to do was get out of there before he had a chance to talk her out of it and make her change her mind. She couldn't let him do that. She needed to go.

Dean followed her into the motel room, his eyes fixed to her back as he watched her closely, anticipating her next move. He had a pretty good idea what she was about to do, and if that were the case he was about to lose his temper, very quickly. He closed the door behind himself, using a little more force than was needed, and stopped. Jamie walked further into the room and grabbed her duffel bag from the floor beside her bed before she dropped it down onto the edge. She busied herself with shoving her clothes inside, arranging them into some kind of an order, he thought perhaps just so that she didn't have to turn around and look at him.

"So that's it? We're done?" Dean asked, coming out as more of a statement than a question. Jamie said nothing, her back still facing him. "After all this, you're still gonna turn your back on me?" he scoffed. "I don't believe you."

"After all this?" she repeated incredulously, still looking down at her bag. "Dean, it was one hunt. That's all. And I told you how it was going to be before we started. It was just business."

"Are you serious right now?" Dean pushed in disbelief, shaking his head at her.

Jamie released a deep sigh. "Dean -"

"No." He cut her off before she had the chance to say anything more. "We're gonna talk about this."

"Talk about what?" she snapped, sounding to be at the end of her short patience with him. He had known that one of them was going to crack, and he was starting to think that it was going to be her.

"We're gonna talk about why you walked out on your family, Jamie." he said harshly. "About how you turned your back on your own twin brother. How you left me wondering day and night for almost five years whether or not my kid sister was even alive."

"Dean," He could tell without even looking at her face that she was speaking through gritted teeth, her hands were gripped in tight fists at the material of her bag in an attempt to hold her anger. "I am not having this conversation with you. What's done is done, alright? Just leave it."

"No, I won't just leave it." he retorted sharply. "I want answers, I mean, I think I deserve some answers. Why the hell did you walk out on us?"

"Dean -" she tried again, but Dean wasn't having it.

"What, were we really that bad?" he continued before she could stop him. "I did _everything_ for you, Jamie. Anything you wanted, I did it. And you still walked. You still walked out and left me. I mean, do you have any idea what that was like, huh? Did you think for a second, while you were running around chasing ghosts on your own, did you think about how I felt? I thought you were dead, Jamie, what the hell kind of sister puts their brother through that?!" he shouted at her, he was angry now and they both knew it. He didn't look like he was going to calm down, but Jamie still didn't turn to face him. "I looked everywhere for you, you ran away on my watch. Dad went crazy when he finally came back, and Sam, don't even get me started on what it did to Sam. The simple fact of it is that you walked out on us, on me, and I wanna know why."

"It wasn't you." It came out so quietly that she barely even heard it herself.

"I'm sorry, did you just say it wasn't me?" Dean repeated incredulously. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"It means I did not leave you, Dean!" she almost screamed the words, finally breaking as she span around to face him.

Dean was physically knocked back a couple of steps in shock. He had never heard her sound that distraught before. He had never seen her look the way that she did. There were tears falling down her cheeks, a shattered look in her eyes like everything she had held in over the past couple of days had finally broken through her walls, collapsing them like water through a dam. Dean watched her, studying her face for any kind of indication of what was really wrong.

"I left him." she finished quietly, her voice dying to nothing louder than a soft murmur.

"Who?" Dean frowned, confused. "Dad?" he asked, the only one he could think that she could mean. "Why?"

"Because," Her jaw visibly tightened, he could see that she wasn't breathing, all her attention seemed focused on not breaking down. "Because he's a fucking monster." she replied, her voice little louder than a broken whisper, cracking over the words.

He stared at her, he felt at a loss for words. "What the hell are you talking about?" he pressed, tentative of her answer. He had a feeling that he wasn't going to like whatever she was about to say.

Dean looked at her carefully, on the outside she had appeared to be perfectly fine. There had been an obvious void of emotion, but other than that she had seemed relatively well put together. But now he was starting to see, it was all in her eyes. Despite the thin application of mascara, they were still rimmed with a darkness, they shone with whatever haunting and terrifying memories that she couldn't seem to let go of. He recalled seeing that exact same look in her eyes when they had been teenagers, he had seen it every single day and he had never once lifted a finger to change that. He had never even bothered to find out what had been wrong with her. He had spent years with those same eyes, scarred and lost and seemingly broken beyond repair. And he had never noticed.

Jamie pulled a hand down her face and dropped the duffel bag to the floor before she sat down on the edge of her bed. Dean pulled off his jacket and moved to sit on the edge of the other one, facing her straight on. She stared nowhere but the floor, like she wasn't able to even lift her head enough to look at him anymore, and shook her head slowly. She couldn't tell him. There wasn't a way to tell him something like that, the words just wouldn't come out.

"Jamie," he coaxed, his voice dramatically softer than it had been. "Please," he almost pleaded with her, he needed to know. "Talk to me."

She reached up and wiped away the tears from her face, he noticed how much her hands were shaking. Jamie couldn't remember the last time she had cried, it had been years. She never felt anything, a part of her had thought that was just damaged, that she couldn't feel. She had seen the most awful things and had never even felt close to tears, she was just blank. And she hated it. Her innocent feelings had been taken away from her, she head learned to ignore them and push them away to avoid more of a beating to them. She had never allowed herself to feel the emotions that her own mind cried out for her to acknowledge - pain, hate, confusion, despair, fear - she had locked them away and allowed herself to go numb.

Jamie gave a shaky breath and cleared her throat. "He hit me." she whispered. "And he," she paused, rested her head in her hands as she choked on her tears. She hadn't been able to cry about it before because with her, any expression of feeling, even a single accidental tear, was just cause for more severe abuse. The only way around it had been to shut her emotions down completely, to push them further and further away until she could no longer feel them. "He made me do things."

Dean held his breath, he could see how hard she was struggling to even get the words to pass her lips. He had a horrid feeling what she was about to say, and he wasn't sure that he could bear to hear it. "What things, Jamie?" Despite how hard he tried to cover it, Dean was terrified of what she was about to say.

"Things that I didn't wanna do." she mumbled. Her hands dropped to her lap as she straightened up a little, taking a deep breath to compose herself. "He raped me, Dean."

That was it, he wasn't sure he could take it. He had been praying that would wouldn't come from her mouth, but there it was. And everything felt like it was coming crashing down around him. The man that he had spent so much time with, the man that he had looked up to and respected his entire life, the man that he had thought had always tried to do the right thing by them, he had been the reason behind the destruction of his little sister's life. Dean had spent years wondering where she had gone, why she had left, he had blamed himself for it and wondered what he could have done to push her to that, and it had been their Dad all along. And then he had to ask himself, how long had she been like that? Because as he thought about it, he couldn't remember a time when his sister hadn't had a dead, hopeless look in her eyes.

"How long?" he managed to ask, his voice strained as he tried to hold back his emotions. "How long was he hurting you, Jamie?"

"The first time, I was nine." she mumbled. "And then it just went on and on, it never stopped. Not until I left."

At that point Dean thought that he could physically throw up. He remembered her at nine, she had been nothing but a sweet, endearing little girl. She had been happy and full of life, blonde hair and a bright smile. She had been so irreproachable, before she had known the evil in the world, before she had been robbed of her own innocence. He had adored her. She had been the one to put a smile back on his face when he came home, she had been the one never ashamed to hold his hand as they crossed the street, she had trusted her big brother to always keep her safe, and he hadn't done that. And then she had changed, and he had never known why. There had been a time, probably not too long after that, when she had become quiet and distant. He had eventually gotten worried, thinking that maybe someone had been giving her a rough time at school, he'd spoken to his Dad about it who had diminished his concerns and pushed them aside, and now he understood why.

He got to his feet and took a few steps away from her, his hands gripped in his hair as the tears shone in his eyes. He couldn't handle it. Being a kid was supposed to be the carefree time of someone's life, it was supposed to be the happiest time, when life was full of magic and wonder and there wasn't any evil. It wasn't supposed to leave someone living a nightmare in the darkness of their own scarred life. To think that his own sister had been going through something like that for all those years and she had never breathed a word to him, it made him feel ill.

Jamie slowly pushed herself to her feet and crossed the room, picking up a bottle of whiskey from the table and taking a long drink from it. She had never told another person before. The only two people that had known were her, and her Dad. And she had thought that it would always stay that way. She had never expected that she would find it in herself to be able to tell another person, especially Dean.

"You, uh, you remember how he used to take us shooting? And then now and again he'd take me on my own, said I needed to get a bit more practice?" Dean slowly turned back to her and nodded, he knew deep down that he really didn't want to know. "And those times that he said I needed to do some extra training, or the times he pulled me out of school early and told you I'd been ill. Anything he said to get me on my own, Dean, that's what he was doing. Every single time."

Her crying had stopped, there was no longer tears on her cheeks or a quivering of her lip. There was no longer pain in her voice, there was nothing left. She spoke with no feeling, no emotion, nothing. She was once again just blank.

"Then he'd get angry," she went on. "At himself, at me, I don't know. But it happened every time. And then he'd beat me, everywhere but the face. He made sure that he didn't leave marks where you'd see them. He knew what he was doing, even when he was wasted he knew what he was doing."

Dean shook his head slowly. "No," he whispered. "No. I can't believe this." He pulled a hand down his face and blinked back the tears. "Why the hell didn't you say something, Jamie?!" he yelled. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

Jamie scoffed, slamming down the bottle. "You don't get it, do you? How was I supposed to tell you?" she retorted. Dean blinked, obviously taken aback. "You worshiped the ground he fucking walked on, Dean. You never would have believed me!"

"Of course I would've believed you!" Dean shouted back.

Jamie sighed and moved to sit down on the small couch, her head in her hands. Dean's anger subsided, being replaced by a mixture of hurt and guilt. "He told me I looked like Mom, that he loved me," she paused. "And he told me that if I breathed a word, I'd be dead."

Dean closed his eyes, he turned away from her and gripped a hand in his hair. He had to wonder if the black hair had been an attempt to get away from the unmissable likeness that she had for their Mom, now more than ever. She looked exactly like her, it was one of the first things that Dean had thought when he had properly seen her the previous night. He was murderous, he felt as though he could rip the man apart with his bare hands just on principle. He didn't know what he was going to do when he next saw him.

He turned back to her with tears shining in his eyes, threatening to fall. "Jamie, I'm sorry," his voice was just a whisper. "I shouldn't have let that happen to you. I'm so sorry."

She gave a small shake of her head. "How am I supposed to forgive what he did to me, Dean?" she asked quietly. "How am I supposed to let it go?"

The one thing that she had never been able to do was let it go. A part of her had clung to the hope that growing up would bring an escape from the pain. When she had left she had thought that everything she felt in her heart - the pain, the fear, the shame - she had thought that it would fade away in time, but it hadn't, it had never left her. She could remember the little details, the things that he used to say to her, the things he had done to her, they were memories that only seemed to grow stronger and stronger the more she tried to forget them, until she could feel the weight of them pushing her down.

It was always there, it was everywhere she turned; a nightmare that never left. It was standing in front of her and blocking her from moving on with her life, it was behind her to stop her from running away from the pain, it was next to her, inside her, every single day. It followed her everywhere, even in her dreams, and she just couldn't let it go. Every day, every time she close her eyes at night, she could see him. Every time she heard a sound behind her in the darkness she would think that it was him, she would think that it was going to happen again. There was an urge to kill anyone that got too close to her, anyone who was to touch her unexpectedly, sometimes she jumped when people did something as simple as lay a hand on her arm.

She hadn't seen her dad in four years, and he still managed to control her life. She still a prisoner of her own dark and abusive childhood, and at every single turn she made she was just re-encountering her own trauma.

After what seemed like the longest time contemplating his answer, Dean sighed. "You don't," he answered simply. "And neither do I." He moved to crouch down in front of her, forcing her to look down at him. More tears fell from her eyes. "We're gonna fix this, okay? You're not on your own anymore. You're never gonna be on your own."

"I'm not worth it, Dean." she muttered, and he knew that she honestly believed her own words.

"Don't you dare, Jamie. Don't you even dare." She looked down at him, for the first time since he had seen her in that bar, their eyes met. "I need you to believe me when I tell you, Jamie, you didn't deserve anything that he did to you."

As he looked up at her he could see how alone she truly looked, and then he thought, she had probably never let another person near her after that. She had probably denied herself all kinds of human affection, never letting herself be loved again out of fear of being hurt. The one man who was supposed to love her unconditionally had destroyed that trust for her, and it had left her in a position where she wanted to isolate herself from the world.

He tentatively moved to sit beside her on the couch and placed an arm around her shoulders with the faintest touch. He felt her body stiffen at the contact, she seemed to go cold like a statue, void of life.

"Jay, I'm here." he whispered. A small sob escaped her at the familiar nickname she hadn't heard in years. "I've got you."

Slowly, she seemed to soften. Dean's arm held her gradually tighter until she had relaxed enough that he was able to pull her to his side and wrap his other arm around her protectively.

"You're never gonna be alone again, Jamie." he told her. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? Not without you."

"I can't see him, Dean." she suddenly said, she once again sounded scared.

"No, neither can I right now." he agreed, more to himself than to her. He knew if he was to see him at any point in the near future, there wouldn't be a doubt that he'd be blinded by his own rage and he'd try to kill the man. "You don't have to see him, Jay. I promise, he won't ever get near you again."

Jamie seemed to calm a little, allowing herself to lean against him. Her hand gripped to the front of his t-shirt tightly, as though she was terrified to let go of him, her eyes closed. "I'm sorry." she whispered.

Dean frowned, looking down at her. "For what?"

"I never wanted to leave you, Dean." she murmured. "And," she paused, thinking over her words. "I miss you."

Dean closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. He kissed her forehead gently and held onto her tighter. "I've got you, baby sister. It's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. I promise."

And somewhere, somehow, she believed him.

* * *

_I know, I know, I'm absolutely awful! I'd normally never write anything like that, I loved John, but when you get the request it's gotta be done! ;-) Hope you liked it, and thank you for reading and a special thanks to the ones who reviewed the last chapter, you're all amazing! :-)) _


	3. Chapter 3

Dean reluctantly cracked open his eyes to the bright sunlight that shone through the open window of the motel room, brightening the dull setting to an almost painful level as it pulled him from his sleep. He blinked a few times in some attempt to let his eyes adjust to the sudden change of light, and let out a deep, tired sigh. It had been a long, long night - for both him and Jamie.

He looked down to see her still sound asleep, relaxed into his side like it was the safest place that she could think to be. His arm was rested around her shoulders as though he could protect her from the entire world with it. One of her hands still held the front of his t-shirt in a loose grasp as if, even in her sleep, she was afraid to let him go, or maybe it was because she just didn't want to be alone anymore. He gently ran a hand through her hair and pushed it from her face, shaking his head slowly. He didn't want to wake her up, she looked so much more peaceful when she slept, like she hadn't lived a life of fear and pain and hurt, but he knew that wasn't the case. He still couldn't process what she had told him, it was like he knew it to be true, it made sense, but he was afraid to accept it. He didn't want to believe it, he didn't want it to be real, he wanted to take it all away and hide her from it. But he knew that he couldn't. And he had to stand up and face it, the same way that she already did every day of her life.

"Jay?" Her face never moved from where it was buried in his chest as he spoke. "Jamie?" he tried again, giving her the smallest of shakes on her shoulder. "Wake up, sis."

Her eyes opened slowly, almost hesitantly, as she moved to look up at him, frowning a little like she was still slightly disoriented from sleep. "Hey." she mumbled. He could see from the initial confusion on her face, she wasn't used to waking up with someone there, and something about that upset him. He could take a good guess that the last time she had woken up with another person so close to her would have been when she still lived with them.

Dean just smiled. "Hey." he replied, his voice soft.

She pushed herself up from him and sat forward, giving a small smile, more to herself than to him. "Don't look at me like that, Dean." she muttered, pulling a hand down her face, not even looking at him.

Dean frowned, staring at the back of her head curiously. "Like what?" he asked.

"Like that," she glanced back over her shoulder to him. "Like I'm some kind of hopeless, pathetic victim. I'm not."

She didn't sound angry, she just sounded tired. "I know you're not." he said flatly, it honestly bothered him that she would think he would think of her like that. "I never for a second thought that you were."

Jamie sighed and leaned back to the couch, looking up at him seriously. "Look, I know that things were said last night, and I know that there's no taking them back, I do," she paused, shaking her head. "But -"

"We need to go and see Sam." he cut her off before she had a chance to finish.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "We what?" she pressed, not sure that she'd heard him right.

If it weren't for the completely serious frown on his face she would have thought that he was joking. Dean had told her himself, Sam was at college. And she knew what that meant, John would never have willingly allowed one of his sons to go off to college, which meant he and Sam probably weren't on speaking terms. And Dean, it was hard to imagine him and Sam not talking, not being as close as they had been when she had left, but there was something in his eyes when he had told her, she wasn't too sure about whether or not they were still in contact at all. And if that were the case, why would he want to go and see him?

"Sam." he clarified. "We need to go and see him."

"Why?" Dean just looked at her, like it should have been the most obvious thing in the world to understand, but he didn't want to answer her. And then she realised. "Dean, no."

"Jamie," he sighed. "He's got a right to know."

"A right to know?" she repeated incredulously. "Dean, it's bad enough that you know. And how great do you feel right now? Hm?"

Dean shook his head, frowning. "I feel sick to my freaking stomach, Jamie." he said, his tone turning defensive. "How the hell do you think I feel?"

"Exactly." she said bluntly, making Dean frown. "And you wanna make him feel the same way? What's the point? He shouldn't be dragged down with that, it's not fair."

"I'll tell you what's not fair," Dean retorted. "Leaving him there thinking that you walked out on us. Letting him think that it's all somehow his fault, that you left because of him. Or leaving him to believe that you're dead, that something awful happened to you all those years ago and that's the only reason that you didn't call." Jamie blinked, a little taken aback with how hard his tone was becoming, no longer sure on whether he was talking about Sam or himself. "He needs to know, Jay. He's gotta know why you left us."

"Dean," she shook her head slowly. "You said he's at college, right? Leave him alone."

"He needs to know, Jamie." he stated again, this time a little more forcefully. "Besides, it's August, don't these college kids get the summer off? It's Sam, it's not like he's gonna be doing anything but next semester's work anyway."

Jamie huffed a small, humorless laugh. "Whatever." she muttered, clearly done trying to argue with him. It never took much persuasion for her to cave on an argument with him, because he just didn't back down until he had his way.

"Anyway," Dean went on brightly as she stood up and headed towards the bathroom. "I'm sure he'll wanna see you, know you're alive."

"Yeah," she scoffed, pausing in the doorway and turning to him. "He'll be about as ecstatic as you were to see the girl who ditched your asses, the one who, what was it, left you thinking I was dead, or that it was your own faults I bailed, or that something awful had happened.." she trailed off, listing the things that he had said just moments ago.

"Hey, come on," Dean's voice softened, becoming more understanding with her. He realised how tentative she was to see Sam, especially after the way that they'd left it. She hadn't spoken to him in four years, and he could tell without asking that she missed him. They both did. "That doesn't matter anymore, he'll understand."

"Yeah," she gave a short, unconvinced nod, forcing a smile. "I'm gonna take a shower." she added simply.

Dean nodded, also pushing himself to his feet. "Alright, well you do that and I'll go pick up some breakfast, how about that?"

"Sure." she muttered, not looking too concerned about anything that he was going to do at that point.

Dean sighed as he watched her pull the door closed behind herself, followed by the sound of the lock clicking on the other side. He shook his head slowly, pulling a hand down his face. He was starting to see how much she really did want to distance herself from people, how much she seemed to avoid continuing conversations longer than necessary, and that bothered him. He wanted her to talk to him, maybe to help him fully understand what she had been through, maybe it would help her to talk about it, to get all of the horrors she had locked away for years out. He didn't know, and she wouldn't let him in.

In truth, a part of why he wanted to suddenly go and see Sam was because he knew he would be better at getting through to her in a situation like this. Sam had always been the one who understood people better, the one who could make people talk, he was good with listening to people and holding back his own emotions from everything. If Jamie was to go into detail about what their Dad had done to her, Dean knew that he would struggle to hold his anger back long enough to hear her out. He had felt like ripping something apart the previous night when she had told him what he had done.

But more than that, he wanted Sam to know what had happened. For a long time Dean had blamed himself, and he knew Sam had done the same. He had spent four years wondering where she was, thinking every day that passed by she could be dead, she could be hurt or in trouble, and there had been no answers. It was hard not knowing what had happened, and somehow, it was harder now that he did know. Yet he still thought that Sam should know that she was at least alive, and maybe he could stop blaming himself or silence the constant curiosity that plagued him to know where she was.

He inwardly groaned as his phone rang from his jacket, not in the mood to speak to anybody at that point, and stilled at the sight of the name that flashed up on the screen; Dad.

Dean stared down at it, unsure of what to do. There was a part of him that wanted to answer it, tell him that he knew everything and demand an explanation as to why he had put his sister through years of hell, but he couldn't. He couldn't stand to hear his voice, to hear him so casually talk to him as though nothing had ever happened, like he wasn't the monster that Dean now knew him to be. He couldn't understand how someone who had done the things that he had could so effortlessly go through life without a care, without seeming to give a second thought to where his daughter was, to the effect he'd had on her. If Dean was to talk to him at that point there was a good chance he would erupt, either that or he'd throw up. And then he did something that he had never done before; he dropped the phone back to the table and walked out of the room, not looking back as it started to ring again.

He had seen true evil in the world, he saw it almost every day in his job, and knew that it was out there in the dark, but he had never thought that there was the same evil lurking in the darkness of their many different motel rooms every night for years, a persistent evil that kept on hurting his own sister. It was enough to make anybody sick.

* * *

_Later That Day_

It had gotten to almost nine at night by the time Dean pulled up the car outside of Stanford. He gave a deep, steady breath, starting to think that maybe he should have called ahead, but then it wasn't likely that Sam would have bothered to answer the phone even if he had. It wasn't as though he and his brother had left it on the same terms as he and their Dad, but there was still that conflict between them, the disagreements and frustrations. He turned off the Impala's engine and glanced to Jamie, shaking his head. She had fallen asleep little over an hour ago, never once mentioning Sam the entire drive.

They had talked about hunts they had taken in the past, they'd discussed the weather, music, tv shows or movies they'd seen, there hadn't been one mention of anything even close to family. Neither had brought up their childhood, Sam, their Mom or Dad, nothing. Dean had a feeling that she just couldn't face to talk about it, especially knowing the conversation that was to come when they arrived at Sam's place.

He didn't know what he was supposed to say. He was about to tell his brother that their sister had spent years being abused by their own father, the man who Sam was already so bitter towards. How was anyone supposed to tell another person something like that? How was he supposed to show up at his door with the sister Sam probably assumed dead and give news like that. But he needed to know. And dean needed to tell him. For a moment, he contemplated leaving Jamie to sleep in the car while he went and told Sam, to give him a chance to get out the anger Dean knew would come before he faced his sister. But that wasn't fair, on either of them. The second Dean mentioned her name Sam would want to see her for himself, he wouldn't wait for an explanation, Dean knew that. There was no way around it.

"Jamie?" He reached out and shook her knee lightly. "Jamie, wake up."

She stirred at his voice, slowly sitting up and rubbing a hand over her eyes, waking herself up. "What?" she muttered, apparently still only half conscious.

"We're here." Dean said simply, his voice calm and steady, not giving away any emotion. He looked down at her, there was an uncomfortable look on her face, like she really didn't want to go through with it. He could understand, it wasnt' going to be an easy conversation to have, even if it was Sam. "It's gonna be fine, Jamie." he reassured her softly. "I promise."

"Yeah," she muttered. "Course."

Jamie climbed out of the car first and looked up at the blocks of apartments ahead of them, she didn't even want to ask how Dean knew where Sam lived. "Come on." Dean said from behind her, resting a hand to the back of her shoulder and leading her forwards.

She felt sick, she didn't want to do this. She didn't want to face him, not after so long. And she didn't want him to know.

* * *

Sam pulled open the door to his apartment, expecting nothing more than of his friends inviting him to a party he wouldn't go to, the sight before him almost knocking the air right out of him. He stared, wide-eyed, at the two people that stood on his doorstep, at a complete loss for words. The face he had seen first was Dean's, which offered up a small smile that had nothing but awkwardness in it. The other, which despite the time and obvious changes he recognised immediately, hit him like a punch in the nose, it belonged to his sister. There was something wrong and Sam knew it, otherwise they wouldn't be there. He looked to Dean's left where Jamie stood, her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her, unable to even look at him.

"Jamie," It came out as nothing more than a shocked whisper. "What -" He stopped and looked back to Dean, silently demanding an answer.

"Hey, Sam." he said simply. "You gonna invite us in?"

Sam opened and closed his mouth, obviously at a loss as to what to do, and saw no other option but to step aside and allow them inside. Dean went first, Jamie right behind him, neither looking up again as they headed into the living room, closely followed by Sam.

"Well?" Sam pressed impatiently, looking between them as they came to a stop and turned to him. "What the hell is going on?"

Dean shook his head, he could see that Sam was still angry. He wasn't sure if that was built up rage that he still held towards their Dad for what he had said the night he had left, or towards Jamie for leaving before that, but he had a good idea. He understood it, and he knew that she did, but Sam didn't know the truth. At least, not yet.

Dean took a seat on the couch, the same as Jamie, and looked straight up at his brother. "We need to talk, Sam." he said simply, his voice giving away nothing.

"About what?" Sam countered. "About why she walked out on her family?" he snapped, he was upset and angry, not thinking about what he was saying before he said it. The last thing that he could ever expect was to see her face again, after all, she had made them think that she was dead.

"Sam -" Dean went to stop him but he was already too riled up to listen to any reason.

"No, Dean." he cut him off, looking down at her. "Where the hell were you, Jamie? We thought you were dead!" Jamie looked down, unable to look at him any longer, struggling for an answer.

"Sam." Dean pushed, his voice uncharacteristically serious, in a way Sam didn't remember ever hearing before, he knew that it must be important. "Chill out, alright? You need to sit down."

"No," Sam retorted, his voice harsh. "I wanna know what happened. I wanna know why she ditched us, why she walked out on her family -"

"Sam," Dean all but shouted over him, his forehead rested against one of his hands. "Stop it."

"She bailed on us, Dean. Who the hell just walks out on their family like that?" he snapped, and with that comment Dean knew that his brother really wasn't thinking about what he was saying.

It touched a nerve, and Dean pushed himself up to face his brother. "Oh, I'm sorry, what did you do when you turned eighteen, Sam?" he retorted. "Remind me."

Sam seemed to step down a little, his eyes falling to the ground in front of him for a second as his anger faltered. "At least you knew where I was." he muttered, his voice remaining dark.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean scoffed. "I really appreciate all the phone calls. I mean, it's nice to know that you care so much."

Sam looked down for a moment, his eyes no longer on Dean as he shook his head, somewhat remorsefully. "Dean -"

But Dean held up a hand to silence him before he could get anything else out. That wasn't what they were there to talk about. "Just, sit down, alright? And listen to me." he instructed, his tone sharp. "We need to talk."

Sam slowly lowered himself down, frowning in confusion, his eyes still on Jamie. "About what?" he asked, more calmly this time.

"About Dad." Dean replied.

Sam's face changed at his short answer. The curiously deepened, becoming somewhat accusing, as though he already knew that it wasn't going to be good. He frowned a little, like it had been the last thing he'd expected Dean to say. "Dad?" he pressed.

Dean looked down to her for a moment, but her eyes were fixed nowhere but the floor. "Jamie didn't leave because of us, Sam." he said, his voice quieter than it had been. He looked up at him and let out a small sigh. "She left because of Dad."

Sam glanced from Dean to her. He noticed her eyes were looking anywhere but them, and that she looked completely void; numb and emotionless. "What are you talking about?" Sam pushed, his voice growing softer.

"He, uh," Dean paused, thinking over what was the best way to disclose something so awful. But there wasn't really a way to make it easier. "He hurt her, Sam. He hit her. And, uh, he," he stopped, shaking his head slowly. "He raped her." The last statement came out as barely a whisper, but Sam heard it.

Hazel eyes stared at him, wide in shock. He said nothing for a moment, attempting to get his thoughts straight in his head. "What?"

He couldn't believe that. He didn't want to. He didn't want to think about something like that happening to someone who had once been so close to him. For a second he thought to deny it, accuse Dean of lying, or at least being mistaken. He thought that maybe she could've been lying, but he knew different. She wasn't like that, she never had been. It all made sense.

"First time she was nine," Dean went on, watching Sam warily as though anxious of how he was going to react to what he was being told. "And it went on until she left."

"No," Sam shook his head, because that couldn't be true. "Jamie?" he whispered to her, his eyes practically pleading with her to tell him different. That was his twin sister, he couldn't take it.

Jamie didn't look at him, she just sighed and then pushed herself to her feet. For a moment Sam was sure she was going for the door, but on instinct he rose to his feet and grabbed a hold around the bottom of her arm, just above her wrist, to stop her. She turned around sharply, as if in shock, her free hand clenched in a tight fist like she was ready to attack, but she lowered it slightly. However, Sam didn't back off, he held her arm still, not tight enough to hurt her but firm enough that she couldn't run. He looked down at her, waiting for her to say something, waiting for her to tell him something different, that Dean was wrong, but she didn't. Her eyes finally met his, the green ones that he hadn't seen in years. They were hard, she let no emotion flow from them; she remained completely blank.

"Jamie," Sam's voice cracked, his eyes shining with grief. "Tell me he didn't." She forced herself to continue to look at him, he could see it in her eyes, the sadness, the pain, the grief; it confirmed everything that she couldn't bring herself to say. "Oh god," He felt sick. "Jamie, I'm sorry." His voice broke over the words. "I'm sorry."

She let her arm slip from his loose grasp and took a step back from him, shaking her head and managing a weak smile. "Doesn't matter." she mumbled. "But just know, I'm sorry for leaving." Sam frowned. "I mean, I never wanted to leave you, but I couldn't stay there. I just couldn't take it anymore."

Sam stepped forwards and pulled her into a tight hug, wrapping his arms around her as though he hadn't seen her in a lifetime, longer than four years. He squeezed his eyes closed and pushed back the emotion, he couldn't afford to face it there. There was a burning anger, a need for revenge, a pain in knowing what had happened to her that he never thought could go away.

As soon as he had managed to compose himself, just a little, he pulled back enough to look at Dean, his hands still rested on his sister's shoulders. "Where is he?" he asked, his voice dark and low.

Dean simply shrugged. "He's on a hunt." he replied. "I didn't ask him where. I haven't spoken to him since I -" he stopped, nodding to Jamie. "You know."

Sam nodded, he didn't know what he could say. He didn't want to think about it any more than he had to, didn't want to think about him. How was anyone supposed to deal with the fact that their own father had spent years abusing their sister in the same motel room that they had lived in. How was he supposed to deal with the fact that he had never noticed? That it had gone on for all those years and neither he or Dean had worked it out or lifted a finger to stop it. It was too much to deal with, and he didn't know what to do. There wasn't a lot that he could do, but he wanted to be with her. With both of them. He knew that the three of them needed to stick together, because no matter how hard he knew Dean was trying, they couldn't avoid him forever. Eventually, they were going to have to face him again. And Sam wanted to be there for that. He wanted to be there for his sister, the way that he hadn't been able to be since she had left them.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been three days since Dean and Jamie had shown up on Sam's doorstep. They had stayed there in his apartment with him, Sam deciding that it was probably better that were there rather than in a motel somewhere. He and Dean had talked, tried to work out what could have happened to their sister, how so much unbearable pain could have all gone on for so long without either of them noticing, picking out the signs that had maybe been there at the time that they just hadn't seen. They hadn't spoken much about it with her, figuring that she wasn't yet in a position where she felt comfortable enough to really tell them everything, it had, after all, been only four days since she had first managed to tell Dean about it. They were trying their best to be understanding, to sympathise and give her the space she needed without prying or pushing her to tell them what had happened, but it was hard when they had such a burning curiosity to understand.

Sam had noticed how completely void she was, she was entirely shut down, and he could take a good guess that was the only reason she was appearing to handle everything so well. He remembered thinking to himself at the time Dean had told him that she was taking it well, he had expected her to cry or yell or something, but there was nothing. She was cut off from her own emotions, never allowing them out. She wouldn't face them at all, she was just blank. But Sam knew, as soon as she did manage to let them out, she wasn't going to be able to hide it all away forever, it was going to come out eventually.

Dean sighed as he reached down and pulled a beer from his younger brother's refrigerator, more out of boredom than any other reason. He popped off the cap and leaned against the door, glancing down to where his brother sat at the table, seeming to be paying little to no attention to whatever the eldest Winchester was doing to entertain himself. He had spent the majority of his time there either watching tv or emptying the kitchen of food. Sam had been trying to concentrate long enough to get some of his college work done, much to the amusement of his brother. While Jamie had been quiet, not really talking much to either of them, especially not about what they had found out; she couldn't go through it all again. Explaining it once had been bad enough, not again.

Before either Sam or Dean could think up something to say to break through the silence of the kitchen, the sound of a phone ringing echoed around the small room. Dean frowned and glanced over to where his sister's phone lay on the side counter. "Jay," he called over his shoulder to the next room, unconcerned. "Your phone." She headed out and made a move for it but he had already picked it up, ready to hand it to her up until he noticed the name flashing up on the screen. "Bobby Singer." he whispered, nothing but shock in his words. He looked to her, eyes wide in shock, and frowned in confusion. "Bobby knows you're alive?"

Jamie sighed. "Dean -"

But before she could get out a single word of protest, Dean flipped open the phone and held it to his ear. "Bobby?" he answered, the silence on the other end telling him that he had obviously taken the older hunter by surprise. He could imagine him pulling back the phone just to make sure that he had called the right number.

"Dean?" Bobby questioned, he sounded beyond confused, somewhat remorseful as though he knew how badly she had wanted to keep herself a secret from her brothers.

"Yeah, Dean." he replied, his tone hard. "Who were you expecting?"

Bobby sighed. "Dean -"

He felt something like betrayal, as though he couldn't get his head around the fact that someone he had trusted for so long could have kept a secret like that for him for all those years. He must have known how badly Dean wanted to know what had happened to her, known how much it had hurt him to wonder all those years, and he had never told him.

"How long have you known, Bobby?" he asked bluntly.

"Dean -" Bobby went to say something but he wasn't having it.

"How long?" he demanded, his tone sharp.

Bobby gave another heavy, defeated sigh. "Since she left."

"Son of a -" Dean stopped himself before he could get really angry, before he said something that he was more than likely going to regret. The phone dropped to his shoulder, away from hearing distance at the other end. "Does he know?" he asked Jamie, his voice low and serious.

Jamie shook her head. "Not everything." she mumbled, avoiding eye contact with him all together. "But he knows enough. Where do you think I went the night I left?"

Dean narrowed his eyes and returned the phone to his ear. "We're not done." Was all he said before he hung up and dropped it to the table with a bang. He turned back to Jamie, his face completely serious. "Tell me everything, now."

* * *

_Four Years Ago_

Bobby crossed his living room towards the front door of his house, frowning at the sound of the continuous and impatient knocking on the other side. It was almost three in the morning, he didn't expect whoever, or whatever, was on the other side to be good.

He pulled open the door to the unexpected face of a teenage girl. "Jamie?" he frowned and looked behind her, seeing that she was alone.

"Hey, Bobby." she replied simply, offering up a small smile.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. His eyes fell to the bag on her shoulder, looking like it was full, and then to her bloodshot eyes. "Come in," he added, stepping aside for her. "Are you alright?"

Jamie passed him and headed into the house, dropping down her duffel bag beside the couch with a sigh. "Yeah," she said brightly. "I'm just great." He didn't miss her voice crack over the words, pretty sure, even without looking at her, that she was forcing back tears.

"But?" he pressed.

Jamie turned to him slowly and heaved a sigh. "I walked out." she told him simply, giving a small shrug with her words.

"You walked out?" he stated, raising his eyebrows. "Where are your brothers?"

She hesitated for a moment before looking up at him again. "Indiana." she muttered.

And right there, Bobby knew something was wrong. There wasn't a lot of things that he could think of that would leave her in a position to turn her back on her brothers. He couldn't imagine anything seeming more important to her than being with them, she had stayed with them through everything in the past.

He looked her up and down slowly, his eyes coming to a stop at her t-shirt. The front of it was stained red with a patch of blood, it looked fresh.

"Is that yours?" he asked her, his eyes never leaving it. Jamie followed his eyes and sighed, pulling her jacket back around her. "Show me." he said, his tone uncharacteristically hard with her. He never become impatient with her, ever, not unless she was hurt.

"Bobby -" she went to protest, but he wasn't having it.

"Show me, Jamie." he repeated, sterner. Without a word, she pulled up her shirt to show him the deep gash that ran across the side of her stomach. It appeared to be a couple of days since it had happened, but it looked like she'd been in a particularly nasty fight with someone. There was dark bruising around her stomach and ribs, some looking old and some looking fresh. "What happened to you?" he asked, the concern coming through clear in his words.

Jamie scoffed, she didn't care anymore. "John." she stated simply.

Bobby frowned, clearly taken aback by that. "Your Dad did that?" he pressed, despite what he thought he told himself that couldn't be what she had meant. John got angry, yeah, but he didn't beat his kids, not to that degree. Or did he?

"Oh, don't look so shocked." she muttered, almost sounding amused by it. "He's only been doing it for the past ten years."

Bobby narrowed his eyes at her, something wasn't right. "Jamie, have you been drinking?" he asked bluntly, the way she spoke, the way she didn't seem to care about anything anymore, there was something different about her.

She nodded slowly, unconcerned. "Yes, yes I have."

Bobby had never seen her like that before. He had never seen her drunk, he'd never heard her give him that kind of tone, he'd never known her to so much as back talk her Dad, never mind walk out on him. "Jamie," he sighed. "What's going on? Hm?"

Before she could think up an answer, what Bobby presumed would be a lie anyway, the phone rang from the other side of the room. He sighed and crossed the room, narrowing his eyes at the caller ID. "Hold on," he muttered, glancing back at her over his shoulder. "It's your Dad."

Her face fell, there wasn't even an attempt made to hide it. "Bobby, don't." she practically begged him. "Please, don't."

But Bobby ignored her and rose the phone to his ear. He knew that if he didn't answer it John would only grow suspicious and call him again, and then he'd show up, because if there was one thing John Winchester wasn't, it was stupid.

"Yeah, John?" he answered, his tone casual, as though there was nothing at all wrong. As though he didn't have a teenage girl in his living room crying and telling him that the bloody gash in her stomach had been put there by her own father.

"Have you seen Jamie?" John's voice sounded from the other end of the phone. He sounded impatient, not having much time to listen to anything that didn't concern the matter at hand.

Jamie took a step towards him, her eyes locked with his, pleading. "Please, Bobby," she whispered, quiet enough that she wouldn't be heard by her Dad. "Please."

"No," Bobby shook his head, there was no saying no to her. "Not since the last time she was here, why?" he asked, finding himself curious to know what John's side of this story would be.

"Oh, she's walked out," he replied casually, he didn't sound even remotely phased, but Bobby had a feeling that it was all an act that had been put on. If he knew John as well as he thought he did, he'd be freaking out about where she had gone, especially if she was no longer planning to hide where her bruises were coming from. "She's throwing some teenage tantrum." he added simply, like it wasn't a big deal to him.

"Hm," Bobby gave a short sound of unconcerned understanding. "Teenage problems." he muttered, becoming more and more riled up with the other hunter.

"Yeah," John gave a small sigh. "You know how kids are," he said simply. "Call me if she shows up, okay?"

"Yeah," Bobby agreed. "You got it." He didn't wait for him to say anything else before hanging up the phone and turning back to face Jamie. "Alright," he sighed, defeated. "Sit down and talk to me, kid. Tell me what's happened."

She shook her head. "Bobby -" she began, but he wasn't taking no for an answer.

"Either you sit down and tell me what's going on or I'll call him back." he retorted, his tone leaving her no room to argue with him. But she couldn't tell him, could she? She trusted this man with her life, more than she had ever been able to trust her own father. She knew for a fact, never doubting, that he would do anything for both her and her brothers. "How often does he hurt you, Jamie?" he asked, his voice a little softer.

He could see the confusion in her eyes as she looked up at him, he could tell by the tears and pain in her them that she had never told someone what had been happening to her before, there had been no escape for her. She had been suffering in silence for what she had said to be ten years.

"You believe me." she whispered.

Bobby frowned, confused as to why she would think anything otherwise. "Of course I believe you." She dropped down onto the couch with her head in her hands, shaking it slowly. "Do Sam and Dean know about this, Jamie?" he tentatively asked, he couldn't imagine that they did. There was no way Dean would allow her to stay in the same place as someone who hurt her, no matter who it was. She always came first. "Do they know what he does?"

Jamie scoffed. "Are you crazy?" she looked up at him and shook her head again. "No, no one knows. Just me and Dad." she muttered. "And now you, I guess."

"Does he hit them?" he questioned, because if it had gotten to a point that even she couldn't take anymore, he knew it had to have been bad there, because she didn't walk away from anything. She never had done.

Jamie shook her head. "I don't think so." she muttered. "I don't know."

But she had seen them both walking around the motel without their shirts on hundreds of times, there were never marks on them, not like on her. She could barely show her skin half of the time. And Sam and Dean shared a room, if there was even a single scratch on Sam then Dean would have seen it, and there was no lying to Dean where Sam was concerned. If something had happened to Sam, Dean would know. And if something like that had happened to Dean, he would've made it his job to ensure that it wasn't happening to either of his siblings.

Bobby noticed the vacant look on her face. "What else does he do to you, Jamie?" he asked her softly, a lot softer than she had ever heard him sound in the past.

"What?" She looked physically taken aback by his question. "Nothing."

"Jamie -" he went to protest but she stopped him.

"Nothing." she repeated bluntly, but Bobby didn't look convinced. "Just, please don't make me go back there."

He sighed and shook his head, he didn't know what he could do. "He'll come here looking for you, sweetheart, he's not stupid."

"I know," she sighed, finally bringing her eyes back up to meet his. "I wanna hunt."

"No." he answered her as the words had barely left her mouth, he didn't even have to think about it, there was no way in hell that it was happening. "You're sixteen."

"I know what I'm doing." she retorted, she was going to argue her case whether he wanted her to or not.

"I don't have any doubt that you know what you're doing, I know how well you can hunt, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous."

"Any less dangerous than going back to him?" she countered. "If I go back there, Bobby, I won't make it." Tears filled up in her eyes as she spoke. "I can't handle anymore. I just, I can't."

"And what about your brothers?" Bobby raised his eyebrows. "Are you just gonna turn your back on them? They're gonna wanna know what happened to you. And you know that."

Jamie closed her eyes, shaking her head. "I can't go back." she whispered, her voice cracked over her words. If she was serious enough that she was prepared to never speak to her own brothers again then there was no doubt left that she was living with a monster. He hadn't seen her cry in a long, long time. Even when she had been a kid she barely cried. And to see her doing it right in front of him, looking so desperate and alone and pleading with him to help her, he couldn't say no. He couldn't let her go back to that. "You have to promise me that you won't ever tell them."

"I can't do that," he said quietly. "Jamie -"

"Please, he'd find me. You know that." The tears finally spilled over her eyes and fell down her cheeks. She didn't even bother to wipe them away. She cracked. "Why does he do this to me, Bobby?" she cried, her voice small and timid. "What the hell did I ever do to deserve this? I don't get it."

Bobby closed his eyes for a second, thinking hard. He moved to sit down beside her and gave a deep breath. "Listen to me, you didn't do anything, okay? None of this is your fault." he told her, his voice calm and steady, as if to make sure that he got through to her. "You know something, Jamie," he paused, unsure of whether to tell her, but then he realised, she blamed herself, she needed to hear it. "I know what it's like to live with a Dad like that, and I'd never send someone back to it." He noticed her eyes widen at his words, but he continued before she could cut in and say anything. "But you have to promise me something, you have to promise that you'll take care of yourself, and you call if you get into trouble, and you come back to me if you have a problem, alright?"

Jamie nodded. "I promise."

Bobby nodded slowly and brought up an arm to wrap around her shoulders. She hesitated for a moment before she leaned into him and allowed herself to cry into his shoulder, for the first time in years she let the pain spill out of her. Her Dad was supposed to be the guy whose shoulder she could cry on, not the guy who had her crying onto another man's shoulder. It wasn't right, none of it was. But somewhere deep down she thought maybe she could escape, maybe it would get easier, and maybe she could finally move on.

* * *

Sam and Dean stared at her as she spoke, telling them everything about the night that she had finally walked. There were tears shining in both sets of eyes that watched her so intently. It wasn't just shock, it was hurt, betrayal, anger.

"I can't believe he never told us." Dean murmured. He pulled a hand down his face and pushed back his emotions, keeping himself calm.

Jamie shook her head. "You don't get it, do you?" He continued to stare at her, waiting for an explanation to what he really couldn't comprehend. "If I would've come back there I wouldn't have survived." she said bluntly. "Either he would've killed me, or -" she suddenly seemed to realise what she was saying, way too caught up in her own explanation, and stopped.

"Or what, Jamie?" Sam pressed, holding his breath as if he already knew what she was going to say.

"Or I'd have done it myself." she finished simply. Neither of them would even answer her. They couldn't. "Why do you think I left? Why do you think it took me so long to leave? I left once I couldn't take anymore, once I was finally at the end and none of it was worth it anymore."

Dean cleared his throat and blinked back the tears that once again shone in his eyes. "Jamie, what are you saying?" he asked her, his voice strained.

"What he did," she looked down, refusing to face them. "He made me want to die."

And suddenly, they understood it, both of them did. There was no way in hell that their Dad would have let her stay with anyone else, and he would never allow her to hunt alone. She had been right, it was a case of walk away from all of it and never look back or she was trapped. Stuck forever as a prisoner in a life of abuse and pain and fear. And after so long, there was only one other option to get out, and that wasn't pretty. She had held on for as long as she could because of them, because she hadn't wanted to turn her back on her family, but then she had quit, it had become too much.

And for the first time since it had happened, they were almost glad that she had gone when she did. Because at least she had managed to stay alive.

Dean pushed himself up from the table, his jaw clenched as he held back the murderous anger than ran through him. It didn't matter that it was their Dad anymore, as far as he was concerned he had stopped being a father to the three of them the first night he had laid a hand on his own daughter. He wasn't a father to them anymore, he wasn't family to them, he had never earned that, and so there was only one solution left; he had to be dealt with.

There had never been someone hurt Jamie that had been able to walk away, and that was a rule that had never ended. John Winchester had hurt Sam and Dean's sister, and that was never a good place to be sitting. Because they would _always_ come.


	5. Chapter 5

The sound of Dean's cell phone, once again, ringing throughout the small apartment, pulled Sam from his light sleep. He reluctantly cracked open his eyes through the bright sunlight shining through his bedroom window and pushed himself from his bed to drag his feet out to the next room. Dean was sitting at the kitchen table, his phone laying in front of him, untouched. That could only mean that it was one person calling him. There was a look in Dean's green eyes as he stared at the phone, he appeared vacant, the anger of the past few days seemed to have temporarily subsided to pure exhaustion. He had a pretty good idea that his brother hadn't been sleeping properly, as though he was constantly waiting on Jamie to wake up and need something. But she never had. She was even more closed up than Dean was.

"You know," Sam began lightly, pulling Dean from his deep thoughts as he spoke. "Ignoring him isn't going to make him go away." he said as he poured himself a mug of black coffee. He turned to lean against the counter and looked down at his brother, whose eyes were still focused nowhere but on his phone. "You can't avoid talking to him forever."

Dean gave a short sigh, turning in his chair to face him. "I can try." he countered simply. Sam just looked at him, saying nothing, because they both knew that couldn't work. "I just -" he stopped and pulled a hand down his face, shaking his head slowly. "I don't get it, Sam. How could do that to her? She was just a kid, I mean -"

"I don't know, Dean." Sam said before he could continue. He honestly didn't want to think about it.

There was nothing that could make Sam understand what their Dad had done, honestly, he didn't want to understand what he had done. It hurt enough, tormented him enough, to know that it had even happened in the first place, but to think into it, to try to comprehend every detail of it, to try and get into his head and work out why he could have done what he did, Sam couldn't do it.

"What do I say to him? Hm?" Dean pushed himself up, his face hard. He had barely spoken about their Dad since they had arrived there, he hadn't seemed to want to talk about any of it, but suddenly he seemed so driven, but Sam wasn't sure to what. "He calls me and what? I pretend that I don't know? I tell him that he's a monster? What? There is nothing I can say to that man. There aren't words for what I feel to him right now." he pushed his words out through gritted teeth, his anger on full show to his younger brother. "And I know I said that I wanted to find him, but what are we supposed to do?"

Sam shook his head, as a complete loss. "I know what you'd do." he replied flatly, remaining completely calm despite Dean's tone. "Dean, you've really gotta think about this. If you get a hold of him anytime soon, you're not gonna be able to stop yourself. I know you."

Dean didn't look at him, he couldn't, because he knew that he was right. When someone hurt Jamie, Dean got mad. And there was no stopping the eldest Winchester when he got mad, there was no slowing him down and no making him think, he made those people suffer. And this time it was more than just a guy at school or some punk in a bar, this was their own Dad, and he had done things to her that were just unforgivable. He was beyond redemption.

"Then what?" Dean asked. "What, I just let him go? He gets away with it? What he did to her, Sam -"

"I know." he cut him off, before he could get angry again. "I'm not saying for a second that we let him get away with this, he deserves everything that we'd do to him, all I'm asking is that you think about it first. I mean, we've gotta think about Jamie. For all we know, that might be the last thing she needs right now. We can't do anything that's gonna screw her up."

"Do what you want," A new voice came from the doorway. Sam and Dean both turned in time to see Jamie heading briskly into the kitchen. She casually poured herself a coffee, saying nothing. "Kill him, don't kill him, as long as I don't have to see him I couldn't care less what happens to him." she informed them simply, turning to look between them and raising her eyebrows.

Jamie didn't look at all affected. She seemed fine, no emotion at all in her face, but there was something in her eyes. He could see the fear, however hard she tried to cover it up, it was always there. It had been there since the day Dean had found her. He didn't know what to do about it, he wasn't leaving her anywhere, but he didn't want to take her even within the same state as their Dad. He didn't want him anywhere near her.

"Jay -" Dean began, but she simply shook her head to stop him.

"I don't care, Dean." she muttered. "Do whatever you want, just don't involve me."

He and Sam looked between each other, giving a small shrug to the other. There was no way around it, they were going to have to deal with him eventually, even if they were going to have to take her with them. They might as well get on with it, no point prolonging the inevitable.

"Alright then," Dean said lightly, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over the room. "How fast can you find him, geek boy?" he said to Sam, who simply threw him a smirk, as if to say that it was a stupid question, and headed out of the room, never saying a word.

* * *

_The next day, Michigan_

It hadn't taken long for Sam to work out where their Dad was, a few phone calls and false names waved around and he had a state and town written down for them in less than an hour. Most of the drive there from California had been in silence, with nothing but the low sound of Dean's rock tapes surrounding the car. He and Sam had made the usual small talk between themselves, even if it was just in an attempt to ease the tension that was fast filling the car as they drove further towards their Dad, but it hadn't lasted long.

Dean pulled up outside of an old, run down motel in some nameless town, turning off his car with a deep sigh. This was it. He glanced back at Jamie, who seemed to be perfectly well put together. There was no sign of distress or fear or pain, nothing, but he had a feeling that wasn't actually the case. He looked to Sam, who also seemed to be doing okay, and nodded.

"Okay then," he said as he pulled his keys from the ignition and sat back a little. "Let's do this."

Sam nodded and climbed out of the car first, quickly followed by Dean. He stopped as he reached the other side of the car when he realised that their sister hadn't moved yet. He exchanged a concerned glance with Sam before he pulled open the back door to the Impala, crouching down enough that he was face to face with her. She looked at him like she couldn't understand what his problem was, like she didn't get why he had expected her to move at all.

"Dean, I told you," she began, her voice calm and steady but, at the same time, deadly serious. "I'm not going in there."

Sam took a step closer to them, having looked over the motel, and gave a sigh. "The lights are off, Jamie," he said quietly, his voice completely understanding with her. "There's no car outside, he's obviously not here. You don't have to stay in there. Just -" he stopped and gave her a look, she knew what he meant.

She had a feeling that they just didn't want to leave her outside alone, maybe incase he did show up. If he did, she would be the one out in the parking lot that he would see, and she couldn't take that, they were right. Reluctantly, she pushed herself out of the car and closed the door behind herself, shooting Dean one of her 'are you happy now' looks as she passed him. He followed her and Sam to the door, hanging outside for a moment as Sam picked the lock to let them inside, a skill he had apparently not forgotten at college.

They entered, glancing around the dim, empty room slowly, cautiously. There was nothing more than a couple of old-looking books on the small table and an open duffel bag of clothes on the floor beside the bed. Other than that there was nothing there to even indicate that someone owned the room. It didn't look as though he had been there for long, or if he had then he hadn't spent much time there.

"Where do you think he's gone?" Sam asked quietly, as though he didn't want to disturb the silence of the room.

"I don't know," Dean began quietly, his voice dangerously low. "But he's back."

Sam jumped, he wasn't sure why, but he all but ran to the window to stand beside his brother and see what he was looking at. There was a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the old pickup truck in the parking lot. He moved back from the window and ran a hand through his hair. He didn't know how to react.

"Dean, are you completely sure about this?" he asked, obviously concerned.

Dean sighed, he knew what his younger brother was getting at. He wasn't concerned about their Dad, he was concerned about the effect of what he would undoubtedly do to their Dad would have on Dean. He was worried about Jamie, about what would happen when her and their Dad finally came face to face with each other after so many years.

He just nodded. "I'm sure, Sammy." he said simply.

Sam nodded and leaned against the edge of the table, folding his arms over his chest as he took a deep breath. He wasn't sure he was ready for this. Dean turned just in time to see Jamie backing away from them towards the bathroom. Her face was nothing but fear, there were tears shining in her eyes, her breathing heavy, hands shaking; he had never seen her look so terrified before.

"I can't do this." she whispered, shaking her head slowly.

Before either of them could get a word out she disappeared into the bathroom at the same time as the motel door swung open, shining some light through the darkened room. John stopped dead in his tracks at the, obviously unexpected, sight of Dean. He narrowed his eyes a little, as if he were silently demanding an answer.

"Hey, Dad." he greeted blankly, his tone completely void of emotion.

"Dean?" he questioned, clearly confused. He slowly closed the door behind himself and flipped on the light switch. "Something wrong with your phone? I expect you to answer me when I call you." Dean still said nothing, just stared at him. "Did you take a hunt like I told you to?"

Dean nodded. "I did." he replied. "Took a ghost thing up in Nebraska, in fact, I actually met a friend there, thought I'd bring her to see you."

John frowned, suspicious. Dean never brought people to meet him, especially girls. "Her?" he raised his eyebrows. "It's a girl?"

"Yeah," he answered casually. "I mean, I made a stop off first." he added, nodding in the direction behind him.

John frowned, seeming more confused than ever, and turned around. Sam was still leaning against the table behind them, arms tightly folded over his middle, a deep frown set into his features. "Sam?"

"Hey, Dad." Sam said bluntly, his tone just as blank as Dean's. "Long time." he commented.

John shook his head slowly. "Sammy, what the hell are you doing here?" He turned back to look at Dean, searching both of them for some kind of an explanation.

Dean smirked, anything but amused. "Why don't you hold that thought?" he muttered. "Sam, watch him."

For a moment, John expected Sam to argue, or for one of them to explain what was happening. Dean never behaved like this, and to have Sam with him just made it even stranger, he couldn't work out what was going on between them, but he knew it was something. But instead of answering him, Sam just nodded, saying nothing as Dean turned towards the bathroom and pushed open the door.

He headed inside to find his sister leaning against the sink, her hands gripped to either side of it, tight enough that her knuckles were white. Through the reflection in the mirror, he could see how hard she was working to keep it all together, as if she was trying to hold back the unseen terror from spilling out. He closed the door behind himself softly and stepped further into the bathroom.

"Jay?" he pressed tentatively, moving closer to her and resting a hand to the back of her shoulder. "You coming out?"

Jamie shook her head, bringing herself around to face him. "I can't see him, Dean." she whispered, her voice cracked. He could hear the true amount of fear, and that only made him madder.

"You can." he answered, his voice steady. "You faced him every single day for all of those years, Jamie. You can show him you're not afraid anymore."

"But I am." she cut in. "I am afraid of him, that's the point."

Dean shook his head. "You're not, you're so much stronger than you think, sis. I know it." His hands rested on either of her shoulders as he bent down a little to face her straight on. "It's your last chance, and if you don't wanna do this, then I understand. But he isn't walking out of this room again. I can promise you that."

She regarded him for a moment, her eyes scanning his face. There was something there, something that took away the fear in her chest, something that made her feel okay, that made everything better. And she realised, she wasn't afraid with him, because no one, nothing, could hurt her anymore, not when Sam and Dean were there with her. She trusted them.

"Okay." she whispered, nodding her head. Dean forced a smile, giving her shoulders a small, reassuring squeeze. He led the way out of the bathroom slowly, Jamie right behind him.

John narrowed his eyes at his son as he walked back into the room. He could see that there was someone behind him, someone with black hair and their head down enough that he couldn't see their face past Dean's shoulder. It was only when Dean stepped aside that he realised who she was. He had to look twice to make sure that it was her, but there wasn't any doubt in his mind. The colour drained completely from his face, his eyes wide in shock.

"Jamie." he whispered, opening and closing his mouth like he didn't know what to say.

"We know, Dad." Sam said simply, stepping forwards from where he had been silently leaning against the table behind him. "We know everything."

John turned around, frowning at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Dean scoffed. "Don't try playing stupid," he snapped, taking a step forwards, making sure that she was behind him and out of reach of their Dad. "We know what you did to her. We know all of it, Dad." His voice was dangerously low, murderous, in a way that he had never spoken to his father before. "Now, are you honestly telling me that you can stand there and lie, pretend like you didn't destroy your own daughter's life? Are you honestly that low?"

His face fell, his eyes moved towards her. "Jamie," he breathed out, the shock clearly still effecting him. "I -"

"Don't." Dean cut him off harshly, speaking through gritted teeth. "Don't you dare talk to her. You don't _deserve_ to speak to her."

He stared at him. He had never felt the pure amount of unadulterated hatred towards anyone in the way that he felt it towards his Dad. No demon, no monster, nothing, had made him feel so capable of tearing limbs from limbs before, nothing in the way that their Dad did. He just wanted revenge. He had thought maybe telling him how much of a repulsive monster he found him to be could suffice. But he was wrong. Now that they were standing there, face to face, Dean could almost feel his blood boiling in his veins. There was only one thing that was going to silence the shouting in his head.

"Sammy," he said simply, never breaking eye contact with his Dad. "Get her out of here."

Sam frowned, looking from Dean to Jamie. "What?" he pressed, he had a bad feeling about the look on his brother's face.

"Sam." he pushed out through gritted teeth, as though he was trying to bite back his anger long enough that they wouldn't have to witness it.

Before anyone had a chance to answer him, John spoke. "What are you gonna do, Dean? Hm?" he stepped closer to him, perfectly calm. "You gonna kill me?"

It was almost as though he was mocking him, but he was only making Dean angrier. "You ruined her whole life." he seethed. "That was your daughter, look at what you've done to her!" He was shouting in his face now, the anger coming out without remorse. "You're a_ fucking_ monster! And you deserve nothing but hell."

John didn't even have a chance to register what Dean had said before a fist came, seemingly out of nowhere, and collided with his face. It was an action that took everyone in the room by surprise, but Dean appeared to have forgotten that the two of them weren't alone, he didn't care. He punched him again, harder, and again. He moved faster than their Dad could comprehend, his anger too far gone to slow down. There was no calming him now.

He only pulled himself back once their Dad was down on his knees, trying to keep himself up straight. There was blood covering his face, staining Dean's knuckles. There was a darkness in his eyes that John had never seen before, something that he had never thought he would see in his son's eyes before. It was pure venom.

"Dean," he began, his voice strained with the pain in his chest from Dean's beating. "Son -"

But he stopped dead as Dean reached to the back of his jeans and pulled out a gun, aiming it towards his face. The anger in his face was enough to convince John that he wouldn't hesitate to fire it. "You're not my father," he spat out. He leaned down a little, leaving only inches between their faces. "You make me sick." he added in a low whisper.

He cocked the gun, ready to shoot, but he stopped. And for a moment, John thought that he had changed his mind. But the smallest of smirks spread over his face and it made him even more uneasy. Without a word, he held the gun out to his left towards Jamie. She looked up at him, their eyes meeting for a moment, before he nodded at her. It was what she deserved, what she needed, he had to give her the chance to do it herself. After a moment she took a step forwards and took the gun from her brother's hand.

"Jamie," Her eyes slowly moved up to meet her Dad's, tears shining in them that she refused to let fall in front of him. She wasn't about to show him weakness, not again. "I'm sorry." he whispered.

Jamie scoffed. "Now." she said through gritted teeth. John frowned. "You're sorry, _now_. But what about all those years?"

"Jamie -" he began, but she wasn't taking it, not anymore.

"I begged you to stop. Every single time." Tears built up in her eyes but she continued to push them back. "I pleaded with you to stop hurting me, and what did I get? Hm?" John looked down, saying nothing. "I got hit. And kicked. And raped. And cut. You never stopped."

He opened and closed his mouth again, as though he was searching for the right words but he couldn't find them. He seemed to finally realise that she wasn't about to step in and try to calm her brothers down, she wasn't going to cover up for him anymore, she wasn't taking it anymore. She had finally had enough.

"Look at me." she snapped. His eyes slowly moved up to her, but he couldn't hold it. He couldn't face her for more than a few seconds.

As if out of nowhere, Sam stepped forwards and grabbed a handful of his hair from the back, pulling his head back enough that he was forced to look up at her. "She said, look at her." he almost growled the words out. If the situation had been different, the unfamiliar tone in his voice might've scared her.

Their eyes met, but for the first time, Jamie's were stone cold. The way that she looked down at him was something he had never seen in her before. She looked blank, like she couldn't care less about what she was about to do. All the years he had forced her to push down and cover up her emotions, to detach herself from her feelings, it showed in her actions.

And then the sound of a gunshot rang throughout the room. It silenced all of them. Sam released the grip he held on him and stepped back as his body fell to the floor in front of them. Jamie's arm dropped loosely to her side, the gun held by just her fingertips as she stared down at him. Dean, still standing behind her, reached down and took the gun from her hand before he rested his other hand on her shoulder and pulled her around to face him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her closer to him while she finally broke down and cried.

"It's over, Jay," he whispered, resting a hand to the back of her head, stroking her hair softly. "It's all over, you're okay now. I promise." Her hands gripped to the back of his jacket as she cried into his chest. "Sh." he soothed. "I got you, kid. We've got you, okay? It's all over."

Dean held onto her tighter, looking up to his brother. "Sammy," he said quietly. "Take her outside, alright?" His eyes fell to the body in front of them. "Get her out of here. I'll take care of this."

Sam opened his mouth, maybe to suggest that he would help him, but he knew that Dean wouldn't allow that. He wouldn't let his brother or sister deal with him anymore, he didn't want them to, he was done with him completely, he didn't care. He just wanted his family, the only family he had left, to be away from him. He wanted them out of the way, away from the bad memories and pain, he wanted them safe.

And now they were.


End file.
